Category: Caregiving & Family

  • Part 2: The Net of Community That Carried Me

    Part 2: The Net of Community That Carried Me

    In my first post, Part 1: Birth — The Six Week Postpartum Journey, I wrote about the intensity of those first weeks after giving birth — the physical recovery, the emotional shifts, and the reality that postpartum doesn’t magically resolve at six weeks. What I didn’t fully talk about then was this:I didn’t go through…

  • Caring From a Distance: The Heartbreak of Eldercare While Pregnant

    Caring From a Distance: The Heartbreak of Eldercare While Pregnant

    Becoming pregnant — especially at 40 — has changed almost every part of my life. My routines, my priorities, and even my sense of identity have shifted. But the hardest change, the one that keeps catching me off guard, is how much it has limited my ability to show up for my mom during this…

  • The Companion Who Became Family

    The Companion Who Became Family

    Unconventional relationships have been the thread running through my life lately, and this one might be the most unexpected of all. I met him in the early days of COVID—not at USAID, where he also worked as a foreign service officer, but in the unlikeliest of places: our neighborhood dog-walking circuit. At first, I wrote…

  • Between Parents and Parenthood: The Millennial Sandwich No One Prepared Us For

    Between Parents and Parenthood: The Millennial Sandwich No One Prepared Us For

    A reflective story about caring for aging parents as a Millennial and stepping into motherhood — a deeply personal take on what it means to be part of the sandwich generation. I became a caregiver long before I ever became a parent. In my late twenties, while most of my friends were climbing career ladders…

  • How I Got Here: Advocacy, Patience, and Love

    How I Got Here: Advocacy, Patience, and Love

    Motherhood feels like stepping into a role I’ve been preparing for my whole life — though not in the ways I expected. Caring for my parents taught me lessons I could never have learned in books, workshops, or even my years of international development work. Lessons in patience, advocacy, problem-solving, emotional resilience — all of…